Administrator and organizational news: summer hiatus

This post is really only of interest to MN Special Hockey board members, coaches, volunteers, etc.
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I've cleaned up our site for the summer break, please take a look and let me know of any other changes to make: http://www.mnspecialhockey.org/

Here's a quick summary of the changes:

1. Revised team site to say we'll be back in the Fall. I'd like to add specific dates when registration will reopen if those are available please send to me.
2. Revised the "about us" page to make it current.
3. I changed the "Admin pages" link at the bottom of the first page.
   

The "Admin pages" link now goes to a password protected site. You need to login with your MN Special Hockey account. If you've forgotten that information I can send it to you. It uses some new Google Apps features and it's a big improvement on our old "start" page.

The old start.mnspecialhockey.org page is still around, but it mostly points to this admin site.

Please let me know of additional requests, changes, etc.

If I get dates for this Fall's registration I'd like to add those to our calendar and to the news page. I'd also like to add board meetings to the calendar.

Photos from 2007-2008 season finale are online

I've finally edited and uploaded the game and party photos. They're in our 2007-2008 photo album, starting here. There are about 140 photos.

If you run your mouse over a photo being displayed, you'll see a menu that allows you save a copy to your personal computer. You can also order prints.

Our web site photo albums page has a link to the 2007-2008 album, it also reminds us that the password for the photo album is "mnhockey".

The off-season: City of Edina - Adaptive Recreation Golf

We had a terrific season. A huge thank you to our coaches, volunteers, staff, players and their support crew(s).

At our pizza party Sue Bradsher suggested we ad some web site resources about off-season activities for MN Special Hockey players. We don't yet have a summer hockey camp (one day?), but there are some adaptive sports programs our community has enjoyed.

I've heard good things about Edina's Adaptive Recreation program for winter skiing and spring golf. We're going to sign Tim Faughnan up to play, though we'll also be looking at what the Minnesota Special Olympics program will be doing this summer

City of Edina - Adaptive Recreation

The fees to register for AR&LE programs are broken into Resident and Non-Resident amounts. A Resident is classified as anyone living in the City of Bloomington, Eden Prairie, Edina or Richfield. Non-Residents are considered to be those living outside of Bloomington, Eden Prairie, Edina or Richfield. The difference in these fees is minimal.

BEGINNER/INTERMEDIATE GOLF LESSONS & LEAGUE - AGES 10 & OLDER

Join golf pros Larry Nelson and Mike Grube for another fun filled season of golf. Learn about golf etiquette, basic skills and rules.

Golfers are supported on the course with volunteers based on their needs.

Date/Time: Fridays, May 2 —June 27 (no class on May 30) - 7:30 pm to dark

Location: Braemar Golf Course
Cost: $85 resident, $95 nonresident

Register by: April 14

Participants in the AR&LE programs need a completed profile. It's a form that's printed and mailed in. I'm sending it with our golf registration form.

Final game and end of year party today

Just in case anyone is looking for help!

The final 2008 game is today March 2008, per the South Stingers Schedule 2007-2008 and a recent post:

• On Sun March 16th there's an All Teams MN Special Hockey end-of-season skate and party. See the flyer for more details.

The Breck Ice Arena is at: 4210 Olson Memorial Hwy, Golden Valley. You can see it in this Google Map view. There's parking in back of the arena.

Coach asked us to be dressed and ready to go on the ice by noon. John F will take group photos before the game(s).

South Stingers 2007-2008 Yearbook

We've published a "Yearbook" for the South Stingers. It has player profiles and pictures, but only first names.

The Yearbook can be found with a link in a new section of the MN Special Hockey - The South Stingers called "Yearbooks from past seasons".

I need photos for Maggie and Nick and a profile from James. I'll ask if someone can get that for me tomorrow as I'll be with our daughter in the stands.

I'd also like the coaches and helpers to send me a note from them. I'll add them and update the Yearbook.

Parties: Stingers and All Team

MN Special Hockey - Calendar has two new entries.

Seth Radspinner's family is hosting a Stingers Pizza party on March 2nd after the game. Please see the handout for more information and phone to RSVP. There's a $5 donation per family.

On Sun March 16th there's an All Teams MN Special Hockey end-of-season skate and party. See the flyer for more details.

Directions for both events can be found by following the calendar details links.

Reference added to web site: Getting ready for practice

I've added a new link to our website reference page:

MN Special Hockey - References and Links: "Equipment Guide and Getting Ready: Equipment assembly and more"

Tips on getting geared-up for play.

Coon Rapids MN Special Hockey Video

Coon Rapids Community TV (Channel 15) has a video on our program. It requires Windows Media Player to view the video using this link:
mms://media.ci.coon-rapids.mn.us/cr/TOTT02-01-08.wmv.

OS X users can view these videos by downloading the free Flip4Mac software (Microsoft distributes this and I've used it.)

Introduction to the Minnesota Special Hockey organizational site (for coaches and board members)

This news announcement is only important if you're a coach, board member, or a volunteer who needs to update our calendar or share documents.

Otherwise, you can ignore it.

Our www.mnspecialhockey.org web site is provided to us by Google. It's free now, and once we get our non-profit tax number we get even more free Google services. It's a bit like having our own "IT department" - for free.

Even now Google provides some services, like shared documents and spreadsheets that we can use if we need them. They also give us some pretty good calendar services.

For now it's only the calendar we're going to be using. It will allow us to create public events everyone can see, and private events for "authorized users" only.

I've created user accounts for board members and coaches and we can add other volunteers as needed. These users can edit the calendar that's displayed on our public calendar page.

Here are some reference notes for these users:

• I sent out user names and passwords January 29th. If you need help with those email me at jfaughnan@spamcop.net.
• Everyone has an email account.The new accounts are set to forward to members' regular email address. You can test this by mailing a message to your MN Special Hockey account and seeing if you get it back. If you don't get it back let me know. If you want to use these as real email accounts you can just change the settings (see below).
• There's a start page where you can find links to the calendar, change your password, access your email (optional) and try other features: http://start.mnspecialhockey.org. There's also a link to this page on the main page of our public site. You can use this as your home page if you like!
• If you change your password don't forget it, I can reset your password but I can't find out what you change it to!

Stingers; hold march 16 for eoy party

Coach Rick is planning for an EOY party on March 16th, so mark that day off. Probably @ 5pm.